


Focus

by LeaXIII



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 02:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21330850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaXIII/pseuds/LeaXIII
Summary: Jay is seeing things.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Focus

Jay is seeing things.

Things that are _actually_ there.

He tries to tell himself that he's just properly paranoid, especially after what happened at Alex's old house, because he _doesn't_ need help and he's _not_ like Tim. Because he _had_ seen something, and reviewing the footage later only confirmed it.

And so he clutches the camera in his hands like a shield, an extra pair of eyes staying vigilant at chest-level, the red light blinking steadily with every few beats of his racing heart. He glances down at the small screen every few seconds, to reassure himself that he and Tim aren't being followed as they walk the short distance to his house.

After they creep inside, after they investigate the attic, after they determine that Alex is long gone, Jay sees something.

He points the camera at the rectangular shape in Tim's pocket, does his best to hold his hand steady, not trusting his own eyes, not _wanting_ to trust them.

He wants to trust Tim.

But he's properly paranoid, after all; and he runs from the house, clutching the tape that Tim had been hiding from him, without looking back.

\------

Jay is seeing things.

Things that _shouldn't_ be there.

Of course, _he _shouldn't really be there either, shouldn't be _here_, in Rosswood Park again, truth be told. He doesn't know what he hoped to find (he knows exactly what he hoped to find), but it definitely wasn't _this_.

It wasn't Alex.

Jay can do nothing but stare, terrified to speak, terrified to breathe. Alex looks a little worse for wear; his faded gray jacket hangs loosely off of his too-thin form, and his hair is a mess.

He doesn't speak either, and he doesn't make a move toward Jay.

He's too far away to get a good look at his face, so Jay lifts the camera to zoom in, and freezes, his eyes darting back and forth between the murderer standing before him and the empty space on the screen where he should be.

_You're not real._

As the realization drifts behind his eyes, he blinks, and moves to take a hesitant step toward the hallucination, but stops as Alex begins to raise his arm in slow motion. For a moment, Jay expects a gun to appear in his hand; instead, Alex just points a single finger in his direction, and it takes him much longer than it should to realize that Alex's lifeless eyes are focused not on Jay, but on something behind him.

He whirls around, and his blood turns to ice.

It's here.

He takes a stumbling step backward, a scream rising in his throat, but then it's gone, suddenly, silently, and Jay struggles to catch his breath, realizing too late that he didn't think to look through the camera, to confirm whether it was really there at all.

He turns around again, to where the image of Alex should be, to find him gone as well.

It takes all of Jay's effort not to sink to his knees, as the gravity of the situation he's gotten himself into crashes down on him all at once.

He should leave now, and he knows it, but he can't fight the feeling nagging at the back of his skull, telling him that if he tries to go back through that tunnel, he'll never make it to the other side. But he can't stay here, either, not with the low hum of static that's now buzzing in his ears like a distant tornado siren.

He fumbles with his phone, nearly dropping it, and does the only thing he can think to do – he calls Tim.

And as he leaves a message, his voice shaking, he forces himself to keep moving toward the small shack, fighting against the waves of panic that are only growing stronger with each step he takes through the noisy underbrush.

_I'm starting to see things that I know aren't there._

He rounds a corner and flinches back. There, not five feet from him, stands Alex – or at least, something that might have been Alex, once, when it still had eyes.

It's not real; it couldn't be, anyway, but the horrifying possibility that it _could_ be keeps Jay from glancing down at the camera for a full two seconds. It's not real, but that doesn't make it any less unnerving.

Jay gives the not-Alex a wide berth, sidestepping around him while keeping his eyes and the camera trained on him, too terrified to look away. He – it – continues to stand motionless, still somehow facing him directly, like the eyes of a painting following his every move.

As Jay begins to choke on the dread rising in his throat, he finally reaches the door to the shack and steps inside, distancing himself from the man still watching him with blood-red pits where his eyes should be.

A sudden _crack_ of electricity blasts through his head, and the camera falls with a dull thud as he covers his ears with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut, desperately trying to will away the lightning bolts dragging across the inside of his skull in dizzying zigzags.

His knees hit the floor, and he barely manages to catch himself with his hands, and he briefly wonders if he's about to be sick, before he finally collapses entirely, choking on the static bleeding into his lungs.

And since the camera is still sitting where he dropped it, a few feet away and pointed at him, he can't determine whether the being towering over him is really there, but as thin lines of crackling red light blot out his vision, it ceases to matter.

\------

Jay is seeing things.

He _has_ to be, right? This must be another hallucination. After all, it's impossible for Alex to be _here_, _now_, standing at the end of the hallway and staring into Jay's eyes with that same blank expression as before. Just to be sure, Jay glances down at the shaking screen.

He stops breathing.

He hears himself speak, his voice still hesitant with disbelief, as he looks back to Alex. Because he's actually _here_ in this basement, and this is _real_, and suddenly Jay is frozen in place, his brain refusing to trudge through the shock as Alex raises the gun that Jay didn't even notice in his hand.

The sound of the gunshot ripping through the air and the searing pain ripping through his skin pulls him out of his haze. He stumbles backwards, throws himself through a nearby doorway, slams the door shut and falls against it. He sinks to the floor, choking and sobbing and gasping for air, and out of pure habit he points the camera down at his shaking hand to confirm that the red blooming hotly around his fingers is really there.

His vision flickers along with the small screen, and he struggles to keep his eyes open. A tiny whimper is all he can muster at the tall figure in the corner of the room.

For once, Jay hopes he's hallucinating.

The camera slips out of his grasp and he doesn't see anything else.


End file.
